Nail the Yukon's history with a sip of the Sourtoe Cocktail

Quirky concoction served to newcomers to the Yukon is not for the squeamish - there's an extra toe in the freezer for emergencies

Things get wild in Dawson City, Yukon Territory. Being inducted into the order of the Sourtoe Cocktail requires tipping the drink back and eventually letting the grotesque appendage rub against one´s top lip.

Photograph by: Garry Sowerby

A toe is staring back at me from the bottom of my glass at the Sourdough Saloon, magnified by a good measure of high-octane alcohol.

I take a deep breath and drink quickly, making certain the pickled human digit touches my lips, however briefly, to qualify for membership in the Sourtoe Cocktail Club. The tradition started years ago as a rite to initiate someone who became a "Sourdough", a true northerner who has survived at least one brutal Yukon winter. "We've gone through quite a few toes over the years," says Downtown Hotel bar manager, Matt van Norstrand, "some are swallowed, one was chewed up and several were hijacked by military cadets from Ontario." Luckily, there is no shortage of careless lawn mower operators and toes bequeathed to the bar in wills across North America. "We keep an extra one in the freezer," he adds, "for just such emergencies."

Normally I steer clear of goofy local rituals, but after a few days in Dawson City I found I couldn't resist. There is an infectiously giddy feel about this little town at the edge of the wilderness that burst into life as the epi-centre of the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Within months of the outside world learning that gold had been found in the Yukon, a First Nations fish camp and moose pasture on the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers swelled with 30,000 dreamers. Almost overnight it became the biggest city in Canada west of Winnipeg and north of San Francisco and close on the heels of the neophyte miners were the entrepreneurs - both and female - who relieved them of their bulging pokes. As gold poured into this "Paris of the North" on mules' backs it was slapped onto bar and restaurant tables for $30 glasses of champagne, fresh oysters at $8 a piece or on kid gloves from London. One fellow bought a dance hall queen for her weight in gold. It was the true Wild West.

These days Dawson still looks and still feels the part. The tiny town is a collection of 1890's historic buildings, log cabins and Victorian houses decorated with rusty picks and shovels from nearby gold fields or with dredge buckets retired as flowerpots. Unpaved town roads are either muddy or dusty depending on the weather and sidewalks are raised wooden boardwalks. You feel like you're in a Western movie, right down to the swinging batwing doors. Small wonder the permanent population of 1,800 locals refers to this town as "Dodge".

Back in its heyday Dawson had Calamity Jane and Swiftwater Bill; these days there's a piano player named Barnacle Bob. You're likely to run into Trapper Dave at an art show or Caveman Bill - a.k.a. Bill Donaldson - at a sushi party. Someone bet Bill he couldn't live in a cave once used for cold storage across the river for six weeks. He did and has now resided there for years raising chickens and using an exercise bike to run the lights and his CD player.

In any case, before long you get into the swing of things and find yourself with a hankering for a jaunt on a Yukon River paddle wheeler or trying your luck with a gold pan. I developed cravings for sourdough pancakes with maple syrup at Klondike Kate's - named after a real-life red-haired dance hall girl from Kansas - and martinis at the former brothel, Bombay Peggy's. Heck, I even dressed up in knickers, fish net stockings, a bustier and had myself photographed in sepia tones brandishing a six-shooter.

But Dawson City is also one of those rare gems, a themed tourist Mecca with a genuine soul and character. Partly that's due to gold still being at the heart of the community. Its presence can be felt in the mountains of pebbles that snake across the landscape like the burrowings of mammoth gophers, century old tailings left by riverbed gold dredges, and in the London p.m. fix gold price posted daily in the Eldorado Hotel lobby. Some folks around town make a living from gold and hundreds regularly come north each summer with a pan and sluice box. Leslie Chapman sees them in her Fortymile Gold Workshop & Studio. "There are about 150 professional miners in the Klondike and they show up with moose hide pokes, peanut butter jars or zip lock bags full of gold," she says pointing out rows of tiny dishes filled with flakes and nuggets of all sizes and shapes.

Dawson is also a gutsy, artsy, enterprising collection of community-minded residents. The Yukon has a thriving cultural scene unparalleled in the country; more people make a living from art of all kinds, and more music albums are recorded per capita up here than any other place in Canada.

IF YOU GO:

Air North - www.flyairnorth.com - Tel: 1-800-764-0407 has regular flights from Vancouver, BC to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory and also serves Dawson City.

Air Canada - www.aircanada.com - Tel: 1-888-247-2262 has several flights daily from Vancouver to Whitehorse.

Story Tools

Things get wild in Dawson City, Yukon Territory. Being inducted into the order of the Sourtoe Cocktail requires tipping the drink back and eventually letting the grotesque appendage rub against one´s top lip.

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